At least ten people were killed and eight others injured as miscreants opened fire on them in Assam’s Sonitpur district, along Arunachal Pradesh border, on Wednesday evening. Three others are missing.
Sonitpur Superintendent of Police Sanjukta Parashar said that the incident took place at a village in Chauldhowa area under Bihali Reserve Forest in Assam. “A group of heavily armed miscreants came and fired on people at Chauldhowa area today, killing ten people instantly and injuring eight others,” she said, adding that the victims were all encroachers, who lived on the forest land for a long time.
However, locals said that the victims had set up makeshift camps inside the reserve forest to resist the attempt of the miscreants from Arunachal Pradesh to encroach Assam’s land. It may be mentioned here that the Bihali Reserve Forest, located along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border, has been witnessing tension for the last three months over reports of encroachment of forest land by groups of people from both sides.
Earlier this month, official of the Assam forest department and police had evicted two camps of the Arunachal Pradesh Forest department, which were set up inside the Reserve Forest illegally. The Assam forest department had also launched an eviction drive in the reserve forest on January 7 and evicted some people from other side of the border who had settled there. After this eviction drive, miscreants from Arunachal Pradesh had fired at a forest official camp in which a forest guard was injured.